The role of emotional awareness in both the generation and treatment of headaches is critical to understand. Many emotions that we experience can manifest as pain. For instance, when a person feels "sick to my stomach" when a dreadful situation is occurring, this is an example of an emotion creating a physical sensation. It is well-accepted that the stomach and the gut are very sensitive to our emotional state. This is known as the "brain-gut" connection.
What is not as well-accepted, but gaining in support from the medical community, is that other parts of the body can also respond to emotions with the generation of pain or other physical sensations. This is known as a "psychophysiologic disorder." The reality is that there are many people who experience pain and other symptoms such as numbness, tingling, weakness, and other neurological symptoms that have no structural explanation that can be determined on examination or with testing. The good news is that these symptoms are just as real as those that have a structural explanation, and they are also treatable. Dr. Blake is an expert in the diagnosis of psychophysiologic disorders and works with other experts in Pain Psychology and Pain Reprocessing Therapy to help people to overcome these types of disorders.
A good resource to learn more about this is the free documentary "Pain Brain" that can be found here. A leading physician in this area is Dr. Howard Schubiner, whose book "Unlearn Your Pain" has helped many people to become pain-free. The most exciting development in this area is Pain Reprocessing Therapy, which has been shown to be effective in 2/3 of patients with chronic back pain due to a psychophysiologic disorder.
